NEWS FOR TRAVELERS. Culture stops.

King Tut And Friends Featured Stars

November 21, 1999|By Michael Kilian, Tribune Staff Writer.

They ruled ancient Egypt more than 3,500 years ago, but their royal names still resonate through the centuries -- Pharaoh Akhenaten, remembered for his revolutionary monotheism; his bride Queen Nefertiti, enduring symbol of classic beauty, and King Tutankhamen, whose tomb yielded both curse and riches.

In a mammoth exhibition opening this weekend, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts has brought their epoch -- Egypt's Amarna Age -- back to life with the largest reassembly of artifacts from this time and place since Amarna, the city founded by Akhenaten and Nefertiti, was abandoned in the 14th Century B.C. The 250 awesome artworks on display in "Pharaohs of the Sun" include two huge statues from Cairo that have never been taken out of Egypt before.

The show runs through Feb. 6 at the museum, 465 Huntington Ave. For ticket information call 617-542-4MFA.

Met masterpieces

Opening Tuesday at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is a marvelous 80-work collection of seldom-seen masterpieces from Lisbon's Calouste Gulbenkian Museum that includes paintings by Rubens, Fragonard, Turner, Manet and Monet and a quite literal-ly dazzling array of Egyptian sculptures, Armenian illuminated manuscripts, Persian silks and delicate Lalique jewelry. It's up through Feb. 27.

On view through Jan. 2 at the Met is Rodin's "Monument to Victor Hugo," along with some 20 other related sculpted pieces. The sculptor worked for more than a decade on this elaborate Hugo piece, which is the equal of his better known statue of Balzac.